


(A Second Chance at) First Impressions

by sunkissedskin1328



Category: Pride and Prejudice (1995), Pride and Prejudice (2005), Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Genre: "How to ruin a happy ending without even trying", F/M, Please Don't Hate Me, This Got Darker Than Expected, i love this characters and i thought this could fit the story, it gets lighter (i hope), mr. darcy has to figure out some shit, my other option for a title was
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2020-03-01 03:24:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18791998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunkissedskin1328/pseuds/sunkissedskin1328
Summary: The first thing Fitzwilliam Darcy noticed that morning was how empty his bed felt.





	1. Prologue: A New Day

The first thing Fitzwilliam Darcy noticed that morning was how empty his bed felt.

He reached over almost instinctively, he'd done it intermittently for almost thirty-five years now. It would usually be unnecessary, as the person he'd reach for would already be in his arms. But on certain mornings; after a squabble, during her last weeks of being with child, or when one of their children dealt with an illness, he would have to look for her with his hands. He would reach over and feel the softness of her nightgown, or the delicate feel of her skin, and cross the distance between them to gather her in his arms, where she belonged.

Now however, his wandering fingers encountered nothing but the cold linens about him. He felt a small pang of panic at this discovery, before his next train of thought.

_A walk, then. My wife has always been fond of walking_. A voice in his mind declared, as a smile formed on his lips on its own volition.

He opened his eyes, ready to follow the woman of his dreams, when he noticed something that didn't quite make sense. It disconcerted him to realize that he was in the bed of his own chamber, not hers as he had grown used to. Even now, so late into their marriage he still went to her at night, for he knew sleep would elude him if she wasn't in his arms. A second discovery caused him to stir even further from sleep. He was in London.

Although it was still his house, something felt wrong about it, after a few moments of grogginess he realized why. His wife loved to walk, but she did so at Pemberley, where her rambles could lead her to the preferred spots of the woods that had been hers for so many years now. No, if they were in London then she must be in the house.

He decided it was time to rise, for he longed to be near her again.

Rising from the bed was a lot less difficult than he'd anticipated, his back had been a problem for almost a decade now, something that both amused and worried his wife, he remembered with a small chuckle.

When his valet entered to help him prepare for the day, Mr. Darcy noticed something...different about the man. If someone had asked him to explain why he thought this, he wouldn't have known how to answer, but something had changed, he was sure of it. He pushed it to the back of his mind, there were far more important mysteries to solve.

Just as he was about to ask his valet about the whereabouts of his wife, he caught a glance of himself in the mirror of his chambers. Whatever vestiges of sleep that had remained with him that morning, left all at once in that moment. He walked closer to the mirror, his mind refusing to make sense of his appearance. His hair was still wavy and at a reasonable length, but now it was darker and thicker than he remembered. He heard the ghost of a laugh and a whispered reassurance, " _You are still the most handsome man in the kingdom_ ", it said. His eyes traveled downwards, and his hands flew to his face, marvelling at the smooth tightness of his skin. Gone were the marks he'd collected throughout the years. Now he looked, in his eyes at least, almost like a boy. A child, of no more than thirty.

At the sound of his valet lightly clearing his throat, he took his seat and allowed the servant to shave his face while he tried to understand what was going on. He wasn't thirty, he couldn't be. Indeed, it had been many decades now since he had moved past his thirties all together. With suspicion, he looked at his valet once more. It took everything in his power to keep himself in his chair after looking at the man. 

It was Thompson, his first valet.

Slowly and without his notice, the panic he had felt before settled in his breast. His hands found the armrests of his chair and his knuckles turned white with force. Thompson couldn't be here right now, for he had been buried long ago. 

The man had been his father's valet before him, and when Darcy became master of Pemberley, he decided to keep him for himself, given that he had known him most of his life and was competent at his job. But being several years his senior he had retired.  _Almost ten years ago_ , he thought, and one morning, not long after, he got word that the man had closed his eyes the night before, to never open them again.

Closing his own eyes, he tried to calm his breathing. It would not do to lose his composure so early in the morning. True nothing seemed to make sense, and he was beginning to question his sanity, but he couldn't show his staff his inner struggle or he'd end up in Bedlam. No, he would have to get to the bottom of this once he found his...

His wife.

Was he married?

He tried to remember his wedding day, a memory he had cherished almost every day after its occurrence, but he couldn't. How old was he when he married? He couldn't say. 

It scared him. 

It seemed that his memories would leave him the second he tried to find them in the recess of his mind. With a small sigh of frustration he looked at his left hand, and to his shock, found it empty. His wedding band was gone, and what was more disconcerting to him, there was no trace to his ever wearing one. Just like his wrinkles and silver strands of hair, the tonal difference in the color of his skin, was gone from his ring finger.

What was happening?

 

* * *

 

 No matter how hard he tried, the beating of his heart wouldn’t slow down. 

Once dressed and ready for the day he had holed himself up in his study and ordered the knocker to be taken down and callers to be sent away. He needed to think and try to keep himself from panicking. 

_Yesterday, what happened yesterday?_  

He had a vague recollection of walking through Pemberley while holding someone’s hand,  _her_  hand.

Then, his mind conjured up the image of a carriage getting closer to the house. 

The yellow drawing room, the one reserved for close friends and family, filled with children; his heart almost beat out of his chest. Four couples, some of them young, some a little older, two of the men and two of the women shared an undeniable resemblance, amongst each other and, to his surprise, with himself. One of the women, he noticed, was the spitting image of his mother, his breath escaped him in what felt like a sob, before he paid notice to the woman’s face. Her eyes were different though; dark brown, and full of life. A stark contrast to his mother’s blue eyes, devoid of mirth in her last years. Unable to take it any longer, he forced his memories to change. 

A walk through the grounds, he was holding someone’s hand again. This time it was small, a child’s, he felt someone embrace his knees, almost causing him to tumble. But he held his ground and heard the echo of his own laughter. 

The memory faded. 

A dinner. Lively conversation. A trip up the stairs with a hand on the crook of his elbow. 

A quiet, whispered conversation, his head resting on a pillow, and a beautiful woman by his side. He knew she was beautiful, but he couldn’t see it, he couldn’t see her.  Every time he tried to focus one of the features of her face, the fog that encompassed his memories made the vision of her disappear. 

He could hear her voice, her laugh. But as soon as he tried to commit them to memory they would dissolve like an echo in the distance. 

As the memories faded, the voices died down. He heard his own voice, thick with sleep, jokingly make a promise to his partner. 

_I’ll be here in the morning_

He opened his eyes and tried to swallow the lump that had formed in his throat. He couldn't. With an anguished sob, he felt the tears roll down his face; heartbroken by the knowledge that he wouldn’t fulfill his promise. 

 

* * *

 

 Eventually, he found his composure, and tried to make sense of  his possibilities. 

Maybe... no, he knew it couldn’t be just a dream. Dreams didn’t have this power over him, even the most terrifying nightmares he’d experienced, paled in comparison. No, these memories were real, they were  _his;_  he was sure of it, but from  _when_? 

With a sigh, he leaned back in his chair and marveled at the lack of pain experienced in this new (old?), young body. 

_How old am I?_

If the situation were different, he would have laughed at the silliness of the question. Instead, he looked around until he found what he was hoping to find. Taking the newspaper from his desk, he held it at arm's length until he realized he didn’t have to, thanks to his young eyes. With the paper at a more appropriate distance, he looked for the date. 

181-

_Eight and twenty, then_

It felt significant. 


	2. I messed up lol

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I JUST realized that I forgot to post a whole scene from the first chapter *sigh*   
> I'll post the missing scene as a chapter of its own and when I post the real second chapter I'll edit this piece into the first chapter. Sorry for the misunderstanding, and THANK YOU so much for your kudos, bookmarks and lovely comments, they really make my day.

Stuck in his study, Darcy realized that that beautiful day at Pemberley was the only thing he could remember; yet, every time he thought about it, the memory would fade more and more. Like a dream meant to be forgotten the second you wake up, his memories seemed to vanish with every passing second. He didn't want to dwell on it. Finding some stationary on his desk,  he tried to list whatever it was he knew about his life.

He was a married man, of three and sixty.

His birthday had just passed by, and His Wife invited their children to celebrate with him.

Their children, how many were they? Two? No, more than that. Three? Maybe...

Four, he was sure. 

His Wife would joke about it, something about them being almost as many as... he couldn't remember.

_Do you want another one?_  He would joke back and she would laugh. At least, he hoped she did; he thought it was  a funny answer.

On its own accord, his mind went back to the memory of the drawing room, and the striking resemblance between some of them, between four of them, took his breath away.

Two of the gentlemen and two of the women.

He had fathered two boys and two girls.

One of his girls was the spitting image of his mother.

Feeling the ghost sensation of a child's hand holding his, he closed his fists and took a steadying breath.

He was a grandfather.

Of how many, he couldn't tell, no amount of effort on his side would clear the fog from the image long enough to take count of the children running in the drawing room.

His heart began to drown in a feeling of longing, so intense, he almost allowed himself to give in to it. He wanted to go back to wherever, whenever, they were. The echoes of his family's laughter bounced through his chest, wrecking havoc in his soul. It was torture, knowing he couldn't be with them.

This realization, opened the door to a terrifying possibility.

Maybe it  _was_  torture. His own personal Hell.

Darcy had always been a religious man, but it wasn't until he opened himself up to the people around him, that he became a man of Faith. Following the Scriptures had been the right thing, but until he recognized the gifts that surrounded him, he only mindlessly followed what was said. Once She came into his life he understood what it all meant, for how could he be a nonbeliever when his life was full of blessings?

But believing wasn't enough, he wouldn't be here otherwise. 

What was it? His big mistake?

Greed? Wrath?

Wrath seemed to be a viable option. In his youth he had always been quick to anger, it took him years to properly control himself. There had been an instance once, years ago. He couldn't remember the specifics, just a hot flash of anger, and a violent conviction to give in. A dark desire to harm another had lit him aflame, they deserved it, whoever they were, he knew they did. And then, a pair of tear-filled, blue eyes flashed in his mind and he knew he hadn't gone through with it. 

Perhaps it wasn't wrath.

Envy? No, it wouldn't make sense. 

Pride?

_Pride_

The word brought a weird sense of recognition with it. Something he should remember a conversation or an incident maybe, it remained just out of his grasp. Pride, that was why he was being punished. That's what this was, that's all this could be, a punishment. You didn't have to be a genius to know this was far from being Paradise.

And if he was being punished,  then that meant...

That he was-he must be...

_Dead_

He had died at some point that night. After spending the day with his family, he had closed his eyes for one last time, never to open them again. His Wife, the one he couldn't remember but still missed with every piece of his being, would wake up the next morning to find that he had left her. 

_'I’ll be here in the morning'_

Those had been his last words, a cruel joke aimed at both of them.

He wished to go back to her, to tell her that even in death she owned his heart. That his biggest punishment was to be without her, with not even the memory of her name to give him respite. 

He gave way to anguish, his list momentarily forgotten, and allowed himself to mourn. In all his years of spiritual instruction, no one told him the deceased would also ache, it seemed unfair; the living had each other to rely upon, he had no one but himself. Allowing grief to lead him wherever it pleased to take him, he drifted into sleep once his energy and tears had been spent. 

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me at https://sunkissedskin1328.tumblr.com/


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